Hannah and her mother’s conversation (on the topic of Adam, her oddball boyfriend) went like this:

 

Mum: “Y’know you’re so special, you deserve everything and more. He’s really nice, but y’know… stay open to possibilities…”

Hannah: “How dare you talk about something you literally know nothing about?”

Mum: “You’re right, I don’t know him very well… I see certain things… He’s odd, he’s angry, he’s uncomfortable in his own skin… He bounces around from thing to thing… I don’t want you to spend your whole life socialising him like a stray dog, making the world a friendlier place for him… It’s not easy being married to an odd man… It isn’t.”

Hannah: “Well I don’t know what to say… he’s just been very nice for you and you’re being very unkind.”

 

Like Hannah, I lashed out with defensive ‘how dare you’s’ and ‘you don’t understand’s’. I took every little negative comment, which got more frequent with time, as a personal offense. I spent most of my time at home crying in my room, writing god-awful poetry about my feelings and my mother’s goal to ruin my life like the overly-emotional teenaged girl that I was. When I tried talking it out with my friends, they’d try to be supportive but would steer it back to, “Hmmm… Your mum has a point though... She’s just not being objective enough.” Great, just what I needed.

 

All that was left was to cry into his chest. But the sweet nothings that he whispered turned me further away from my friends’ and my mother’s wise words and harsh advice, because, well, it was all against him. So a painful rift formed and my emotions were constantly being torn to shreds trying to make both sides happy by creating compromises that never really worked and made me look defeated in front of both parties. And I was.

 

My now ex-boyfriend, like Adam, was very ‘alternative’. He didn’t have a job and therefore was always broke, didn’t like the city because too many people made the poor darling feel like a startled caveman, despised social events and general dress codes, and smoked a lot of weed. On the up side, he was a garage percussionist, he occasionally wrote me poetry and recommended amazing books, had beautiful tan skin, sculpted V-lines, and was so good in bed he made me feel like Beyoncé at the roller disco. But all in all, that was it.

 

The rest needed to be groomed. In order to dodge the embarrassment of him entering my house and saying hello to my mother in his dirt-stained pants, sweat-soaked shirt and overgrown unwashed hair, I became an athlete at the sport of getting out of the house, into his car and away as quickly as possible. I bought him clothes because he looked like he got dressed in the dark. I taught him how to iron his shirts (which he never did). I gave him haircuts which he cunningly learned to avoid. I nagged him about keeping his room clean, getting his shit together and getting a job so he can support himself which he never ever managed to do.

 

So the girlfriend assumed the role of a disappointed but unconditionally loving mother. Despite the fact he never really made an effort for me, I spent all of my time trying to socialise him, to make the world a friendlier place for him and to somehow change the opinions of my mother and my friends so we could live happily ever after.

 

I conned him into date-nights in the city with concert tickets to bands that he’d like, spent agonising hours with him, his friends and his extended family hoping that he’d follow suit and do me that solid of making a good impression with mine. On the incredibly rare occasion that he begrudgingly did, I was on cloud nine thinking our relationship was the best thing ever and I was the happiest person in the world.

 

All he did teach me was how to rip a solid cone and how to fuck like I wrote the Kama Sutra. That’s what the relationship came down to.

 

And it showed. It showed in my mother’s face as she let me in the door at stupid o’ clock every night I went to his place. It showed in the reflections in my friends’ eyes as they rolled around in their sockets over coffee when I’d try to make my nights in the garage smoking cones followed by a sex marathon sound interesting for the hundredth time. By the end, I felt ashamed telling anyone that I was spending the evening with him – because they knew what was going to happen. We would have sex, smoke a lot of weed, and I would come home smelling like both, speaking drowsy nonsensical lies about what we did that night. Classy, huh?

 

Not every person you fall in love with is going to be a good egg. Sometimes, if your heart is more stubborn than your head, it can take years of failed expectations and let downs and screaming matches with your loved ones to figure that out. In hindsight, I want to kick myself. It took me a little over three years to realise that the guy I had fallen for was a bit of a dickhead. I refused to accept any negative word anyone said about him, taking it as a personal attack. I was much too proud to admit that I was unhappy. But the more that formidable truth was stated, the more I noticed it.

 

I realised that the whole time they were right and I was a hopeful love fool.

 

I guess the take-away message is that when the world turns against you, there’s usually a very good reason as to why. While a mother’s unconditional love may look sometimes like a life-ruining vendetta it probably isn’t. If your friends are bold enough to disagree with you on matters of a relationship with a jerk, they’re the ones worth keeping.

 

At the end of the day, the only person that’s able to open up the side of your brain that suddenly realises you gotta get out of this mess is you.

 

Have you been in a relationship that your family/friends disapproved of? Talk to us in the comments!